It’s the ‘Nu’ Variant. Everyone Run for Your Lives!

Did you hear? There’s a new coronavirus variant loose upon the land. It’s bigger, taller, faster, more lethal, and more deadly than any other variant in history. They call it the “Nu” variant because nu is the 13th letter of the Greek alphabet and this is the 13th variant discovered.

How could we get so unlucky?

Actually, that’s pretty silly. Scientists have never pitted this Nu variant against the Delta variant in a race so we don’t know if it’s really the fastest. But my money is on Nu, otherwise, there goes the narrative and we’re back to trying to drum up hysteria by falling back on the Delta variant’s supposed resistance to vaccines.

So is the Nu variant resistant to vaccines? We don’t know.

Does it spread faster than the Delta variant? We don’t know.

Is it deadlier to contract than any other variant? We don’t know.

Are you detecting a pattern here?

If you’re already vaccinated, can you catch the Nu variant? We don’t know. But has that stopped the media hysterics from trying to gin up more fear about the pandemic?

This Nu variant is actually a godsend because it fulfills the number one dictum for the left’s hysteria machine: never let a crisis go to waste. And number 2 is, if a crisis doesn’t exist, create one.

Washington Post:

Global markets reeled Friday — with the Dow tumbling more than 800 points at the opening bell — after the discovery of a coronavirus variant in South Africa raised new pandemic worries.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down 2.2 percent in early trading, while the S&P 500 was off 1.4 percent and the Nasdaq nearly 1 percent.

The sell-off followed reports Thursday of a new covid-19 variant known as B. 1.1.529. World Health Organization officials are concerned about the variant’s high number of mutations, though they emphasized that it will take several weeks to understand what that means for vaccines and testing.

The New York Times reporting emphasizes the “similarities” with other mutated strains of the coronavirus — which doesn’t mean anything but sure sounds scary.

The variant shares similarities with the Lambda and Beta variants, which are associated with an innate evasion of immunity, said Richard Lessells, an infectious diseases specialist at the KwaZulu-Natal Research and Innovation Sequencing Platform.

“All these things are what give us some concern that this variant might have not just enhanced transmissibility, so spread more efficiently, but might also be able to get around parts of the immune system and the protection we have in our immune system,” Dr. Lessells said.

It’s not just the markets. Air travel has been disrupted as well.

New York Times:

The European Commission proposed that its members activate the “emergency brake” on travel from countries in southern African and other countries affected to limit the spread of the new variant.

“All air travel to these countries should be suspended until we have a clear understanding about the danger posed by this new variant,” Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Union’s executive arm, said in a statement. “And travelers returning from this region should respect strict quarantine rules.”

Are these countries being prudent? Or are they wildly overreacting? At this point, a little prudence is called for. As for the markets, stock analysts are paid to be prudent.

But the breathless commentary from the media — including this from Reuters — has got to stop.

Authorities around the world reacted with alarm on Friday to a new coronavirus variant found in South Africa, with the EU and Britain among those tightening border controls as researchers sought to establish out if the mutation was vaccine-resistant.

Hours after Britain banned flights from South Africa and neighbouring countries and asked travellers returning from there to quarantine, the World Health Organization (WHO) cautioned against hasty travel bans.

“Reacted with alarm” is a false characterization not proved by any evidence presented. It’s pandemic porn and Reuters should be ashamed. How about the Daily Beast — the original purveyors of COVID death porn — headlining their piece “Europe Records First Case of COVID Super-Mutant in Belgium”? “”Super-mutant,” indeed.

It’s probably not possible for the media to offer reasoned analysis of what’s happening with this new variant. When the drive for audience becomes all, the truth can easily get lost. But the real-world consequences of continuing to unnecessarily frighten people for the sake of ratings or page views will only further erode the little trust that’s left between the news producers and consumers.

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